


St. Michael

by OldShrewsburyian



Series: Saints for Unbelievers [3]
Category: Endeavour (TV), Inspector Morse & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bach, Book of Common Prayer, Character Death, Gen, Oxford, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 00:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11391144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: A funeral at St. Michael in the Northgate. Feel free to consider this as canon-divergent after series 2, if you don't want to consider it as occurring entirely post-canon.





	St. Michael

“I know,” intones the minister,  “that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger. We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

“Like hell,” thinks Morse, blasphemously, and helps to shoulder the coffin. He squints into the bright light from the east window and tells himself that he has only himself to blame for the lump rapidly forming in his throat. He had, at first, tried to decline the responsibility for choosing the music:

_“I don’t think I—” he had begun. “Surely, it’s not my place—”_

_“Oh, please do,” Mrs. Thursday had said, and he had instantly reproached himself for making her utter that ‘please.’ “I can’t seem to find anything that’s not gloomy.” And then she had added, suddenly, passionately: “I can’t bear to think about it.”_

And so, as the funeral procession enters the church, the purple-cassocked choir sings “Erkenne mich, mein Hüter,” and Morse tries in vain to swallow his misery. 

He follows dutifully along with the psalms. _For there is mercy with thee; therefore shalt thou be feared._ He is not quite sure whether he finds them touching or horribly pathetic, these ancient expressions of trust, of hope. 

When he rises to give the first reading, he squares his shoulders a little before making the slightest of genuflections before the altar. He clasps the edges of the lectern, the eagle’s bronze wings biting into the flesh of his palms.

“But some man will say, How are the dead raised up?” In the front pew, Mrs. Thursday continues to weep, silently and steadily. Her arm around her mother’s shoulders, Joan stares straight ahead, dry-eyed, her expression one of burning anger. Morse is powerless to say at whom her anger might be chiefly directed.

“It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power…” Morse lets his gaze drift to the great window in the south transept. It has always seemed slightly odd to him that St. Michael the Archangel should be the patron saint of the police. Surely some more methodical and mistrustful saint—Thomas, perhaps—would be more apt. But perhaps it is not so farfetched, after all; St. Michael had fought those with whom he had once worshiped in perpetual light, charged with the task of casting out those who had set themselves against the first unbreakable law. He must have once known the dragon writhing at his feet as a friend; those scaly wings must once have rivaled his own, now spread in dazzling radiance. 

“And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.” St. Michael gazes out, not in revenge, nor in pain. His expression is at once gentle and resolute, Morse thinks; his eyes sorrowful, the set of his mouth and chin suggesting deep reserves of compassion. But perhaps he is only imputing to the archangel the qualities of the much-loved man who now lies in the coffin below him.

“O death,” reads Morse, and his voice sounds hollow in his own ears, “where is thy sting?” Deep within him is the desire to howl: it is here, here, here with them all, unbearably sharp. Morse swallows hard.

“Be ye steadfast, unmoveable…” Fred Thursday had always been that. Stubborn old bugger. Morse catches Strange’s eye, and wonders if the same affectionate-irreverent thought had crossed the other man’s mind.

“Forasmuch as ye know,” says Morse, and has the satisfaction of hearing his voice echo off the church’s stone pillars, “that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am very sorry. But once the image of a funeral under the gaze of that stained glass window had taken hold, it wouldn't go away until I wrote it out. The Bach is taken from the St. Matthew Passion, and is both a plea for recognition and acceptance by God, and an acknowledgement of divine goodness. There's even a reference to food in it, which makes me happy in light of the fact that Fred Thursday views Win's sandwiches as a key component of a well-ordered universe.
> 
> The other texts are all taken from the 1928 BCP.
> 
> For more on the church, its choir, and its ties to the city and police force of Oxford: http://www.smng.org.uk/


End file.
